Kelly McParland: Obama's hesitation opens the U.S. to more humiliation in Egypt and Syria

Obama's hesitation opens the U.S. to more humiliation in Egypt and Syria

In the typical cycle of presidential power, an incumbent nearing the half-way point of a second term — power leaking away as lame duck status approaches — starts to despair of getting anything done on his domestic agenda, and turns increasingly to foreign affairs.

Not Barack Obama. If anything, Mr. Obama would probably welcome a few local crises, the better to avoid more of the humiliation being heaped on Washington in the Middle East.

On Thursday morning, reports indicated former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak had been released from prison and transported by helicopter to a military hospital. The U.S. was strongly opposed to his release, just as it has been strongly opposed to much else that has happened in Egypt over the past several weeks. It warned Egypt’s military against ousting President Mohamed Morsi; it warned against using force against encampments of Morsi’s followers; it pressed for dialogue between military leaders and the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was ignored on all fronts. On Tuesday the supreme leader of the Brotherhood was arrested at a Cairo apartment. On Thursday Mubarak was freed. Morsi remains in detention at an undisclosed location.

Obama, meanwhile, dithers over whether to proceed with an inadequate response. If he so orders, the U.S. would halt $1.3 billion in military aid to Cairo. Not that it matters much to Egypt’s new rulers: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have already pledged many times that amount in assistance.

The message is that the U.S. can be safely ignored. It’s amplified by the fact much of the promised aid is coming from Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. ally. Washington would prefer the Saudis refrain from propping up the new, unelected Egyptian government, but the Saudis are dong so anyway, with enthusiasm.

The UN long ago showed itself incapable of dealing with Syria, hobbled by Russia’s place on the Security Council and its determination to stand by Assad.

If it looks frail in Egypt, the Obama administration looks helpless in Syria. Reports continue to suggest hundreds of civilians, including many children, died horrible deaths following a chemical attack by the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian government denies it, but has yet to grant access to the scene to a United Nations team that’s in the country to investigate reports of previous chemical attacks. Media assessments note that it’s almost exactly a year since Mr. Obama said the use of chemical weapons would constitute a “red line” that, if crossed, would provoke a U.S. response. But there’s been no such response, and not much expectation that one is imminent.

The Washington Post, in an opinion posted by its editorial board, writes that the alleged attack appears to fulfill warnings that Washington’s failure to respond vigorously to earlier violations would only embolden Assad.

Mr. Assad logically could have concluded that he had little to fear from the United States, even if chemical weapons use were escalated. Mr. Obama’s hesitant and indecisive response to the massive carnage carried out by Egypt’s military-backed regime last week only strengthened the picture of a president unwilling to act in the Middle East.

A White House statement issued in response to the latest attack failed to repeat the “red line” pledge, it noted. Instead it offered the flaccid assertion that “those responsible for the use of chemical weapons must be held accountable.”

The obvious response is: “Yes, but by who?”

Not the United Nations. The UN long ago showed itself incapable of dealing with Syria, hobbled by Russia’s place on the Security Council and its determination to stand by Assad. The official line is that a planned Washington/Moscow summit in Geneva would seek a position the two could share. But hopes of success were never great, and declined further when Mr. Obama — upset that Russia granted asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden — cancelled a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin and suggested the Russian leader “[has] got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom.”

Russia has already dismissed the chemical attack as a clever ruse perpetrated by Assad’s opponents. The U.S. feels it has to go through with the Geneva exercise anyway, to justify taking a tougher line later. That’s of little consolation to the anti-Assad forces. As Josh Rogin, in The Daily Beast, reported:

“Unofficially, [American officials] say, ‘You sit down at the table and you say you need Assad to go and they say no, and then the negotiations fail and we move on to the stage,’” said [Khalid Saleh, official spokesman for the Syrian National Coalition] “It is difficult to explain to the fathers of the dead children that we need to do this as a political maneuver.”

All the evidence suggests Mr. Obama simply isn’t convinced direct military action will work, if it means the U.S. overwhelmingly takes the lead. The allegations, infuriating as they are, remain unproven, and it is not beyond possibility that one of the extremist factions battling Assad would stoop to such an atrocity to manipulate opinion. The New York Times reports there are a number of conflicting signs suggesting videos of the slaughter are anything but conclusive.

The White House can’t simply act for the sake of acting, much as that might temporarily satisfy public opinion. But vacillating, as it is doing now, simply adds to impressions of its powerlessness and further emboldens powers, like those in Egypt, that chafe at the restraints it imposes.

The Post, for one, has had enough. Never a conservative voice, it nonetheless insists delay is unacceptable.

The United States should be using its own resources to determine, as quickly as possible, whether the opposition’s reports of large-scale use of gas against civilians are accurate. If they are, Mr. Obama should deliver on his vow not to tolerate such crimes — by ordering direct U.S. retaliation against the Syrian military forces responsible and by adopting a plan to protect civilians in southern Syria with a no-fly zone.

Mr. Obama drew the red line. The consequences of failing to act now would be a growing legacy of human misery.

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.